As long as I know steemit pay their employees with fiat, means that in the bearish market steemit may struggle to pay their employees. I don't think steemit is dead yet, they can change their payment structure.
And about the alternative, im not really sure but Mithril is the closest one to steemit.
Mithril is not that close to steemit. you can't compare mithril with steemit. because it is mostly on videos and pictures and they are yet to introduce web base platform for content. the closest to steemit is golos. a Russian platform. another new content platform coming is CBNT.(creating breaking news together).